I Tried to do Handstands for You
by altrove
Summary: It was a Friday afternoon when Robin first noticed something was up with Kid Flash.
It was a Friday afternoon when Robin first noticed something was up with Kid Flash.

Fridays were movie nights at the cave, and Wally was always first in line to get his choice of sci-fi before M'gann could choose a rom com or Kaldur an animal rights documentary. So when Wally grabbed his bag immediately after training with Black Canary and ran towards the zeta tubes mumbling something about too much science homework, Dick didn't believe him. Because Wally was a science genius. And he never had science homework. Like, ever.

He noticed it again two Tuesdays after that. He'd texted Wally asking if he wanted to come over and play some video games, but his friend didn't respond for two hours. Two hours! The speedster always responded to his messages, even with just a quick 'busy'. So it worried him when KF didn't text back, because that meant he was tied up with something (or worse, literally tied up), and he knew for a fact that Wally didn't do after school activities or extracurriculars outside of science club, but that was every other Monday. (He wasn't a stalker, really. He just wanted to make sure Wally wasn't falling in with the wrong crowd.) He guessed that maybe the speedster just got grounded and forgot to tell him again, so he pushed it to the back of his mind. It was just one time, right?

After another two weeks of the weird behaviour, Dick decided to confront the team about it.

"Have you guys noticed that Wally's been acting strange lately?" He'd found the team (minus Wally) in the kitchen trying M'gann's latest cookie recipe, which just made the speedster's absence even more worrisome, because Wally could always be counted on to eat the Martian's baking.

"You mean weirder than normal?" Artemis quipped.

"I'm sure if there were something wrong Kid Flash would tell us." Kaldur intoned, not looking up from the book he was reading.

"Kaldur's probably right. I'm sure Wally's fine." Miss Martian replied from her place by the stove.

"Yeah, I guess so." Robin mumbled under his breath. "Well, I gotta get back to Gotham. See you guys later."

He entered the zeta tube as the rest of the team offered their goodbyes.

It wasn't until a month later that Dick walked into the training room at Mount Justice and figured out what Wally had been up to.

"Dude, what are you doing?" The first thing he'd seen when he entered the room was Wally, upside down, and doing what appeared to be a handstand. The redhead let out a startled noise before toppling over, missing the mat, and slamming his knees straight into the concrete floor.

Wally let out a small moan of pain from where he was lying on the ground. Dick immediately rushed over to where his friend had fallen.

"Are you alright?" the acrobat questioned.

"Ugh. I think I cracked something in my knee." Wally's voice came out muffled. He'd thrown an arm over his face in response to the pain.

"Stay here, I'll be right back. If you move you'll only make it worse." and with that the younger boy disappeared out of the room, returning shortly with a bag of frozen strawberries from the freezer.

He dropped down to the floor beside his friend and carefully placed the iced fruit on Wally's knee where he could already see a bruise forming. As soon as the bag made contact Wally shot upright.

"Cold!" He yelped. "Dude that's so cold!" In his sudden panic he had knocked the strawberries off his leg, so Dick picked them up and returned them to their previous position.

"It helps. Now stop moving, you ripped the bag." said the younger teen, frowning at the small strawberry that had fallen to the floor. After a few moments of silence, he spoke up again. "What were you doing anyways?"

At this Wally looked and the ground and sheepishly answered. "I was… Practicing."

"Practicing what?"

"Well, I didn't want to tell you until your birthday next week, but I guess since you're here I might as well just admit it."

"Wally, are you gonna keep talking or am I gonna have to start guessing?"

"Alright, well, I know how important acrobatics are to you, especially since your parents, you know..." Dick gave a small frown at that, but allowed Wally to continue. "And so I figured that for your birthday I could maybe learn some gymnastics so there would be someone else you couldsharethatpartofyourlifewithandIknowit'snotthesamebut-" The ginger was abruptly cut off as he was tackled to the floor by the force of the hug the smaller boy engulfed him with.

Even though the last bit had come out as speedster-talk, Dick had been friends with Wally long enough to understand (almost) every word of it. And although he would never admit it, when he un-buried his face from his friend's chest and looked up at him, there might have been tears in his eyes.

"Thank you." He whispered, and his voice sounded so small that Wally immediately wrapped his arms around his friend, returning the hug with the same force.

The two teens stayed like that for a little while longer, before pulling apart to check on Wally's knee.

"It feels like it's healed, but these strawberries are pretty much toast." Said the ginger, looking to where the bag had fallen and spilled from the initial hug. Most of the fruit was strewn across the floor, and the ones that remained in the bag had long since un-thawed.

"Well, there's no sense in letting them go to waste." Robin replied as he reached down to the small package and popped a strawberry into his mouth. He grinned and repeated the action after finishing off the first berry.

Shifting so that the younger could lean into his side, Wally joined in on eating the remaining fruit, and asked "So, I take it I did alright in the present department?"

"Shut up." was all Dick said, but there was no heat behind the words, and the huge smile plastered across his face betrayed how he truly felt.

They sat there for most of the rest of the afternoon, eating strawberries and chatting and just enjoying each other's company.

* * *

 **AUTHORS NOTES**

I could've sworn I uploaded this here months ago? I've never used the site before though so like I probably just screwed up or smth w/e.

Cross-posted from AO3

So this is practically my first time writing fanfiction, ever. I just had too many feelings about Young Justice and needed to get them out of my head. I hope you guys liked it!

This fic was (heavily) inspired by the song Bruises by Chairlift.


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